Lake Champlain-Burlington, VT

We headed across Vermont in the rain, but luckily it didn't last all day. We landed at Apple Island Resort, a nice campground, right on Lake Champlain, complete with a marina. We are here for 3 nights- we added a night when we found out they accept Passport America, which is our "Club", like AAA, that cuts our price for the campground by 50%. We did some food shopping and in general just got our bearings and tried to get a sense of what we want to do while we are here. We thought that putting the dinghy in the water might be fun, but as it turns out, not with the wind and/or cold we have had.

We back tracked a bit to see a quarry that Paul was very interested in seeing. It was an hour drive but it actually was very interesting and worth the trip. We went to Rock of Ages granite quarry, the deepest quarry operating in the world, 610 feet deep. the granite is actually 6 miles deep and about 10 miles long, enough to keep the quarriers working for 4500 years. The pieces they pull out weigh 23 tons each-they don't look that heavy at all, but granite weighs 100+ lbs per cubic foot. From there we went to the local cemetery, called Hope Cemetery, which has some very different and unique headstones. Many people in this area design and build their own family headstones. We had a very late lunch in Barre, VT.

A trip to Vermont wouldn't be complete (I guess) without a trip to Ben and Jerry's. We stopped there on our way back home. The tour is ok, and they do give you a sample of whatever ice cream they are making that day- it happened to be Chocolate chip cookie dough, and Paul asked for seconds. After then buying a cone of a different flavor, we both decided that we had just had dinner. Just as fun as the tour was the graveyard of ice cream flavors.

This morning we got a slow start, then decided that we can't spend EVERY day running around, so we "allowed" ourselves to relax and go window shopping in downtown Burlington. We still feel like we are moving at too fast of a pace, but plan on slowing down and spending a week in each location(eventually).

Burlington is on Lake Champlain and it's downtown is kind of different. Usually in this type of town we have found the action is near the water. In Burlington, they do have the boat tours of course, but the harbor area has a marina, a park and has lots of "regular" businesses, as well as restaurants. We ate at a mexican restaurant (La Madera) that was actually really good. They featured Hatch chiles, a favorite of Paul's, in their sauce. In addition to park benches, there were also swings that seat 2-3 people. Fun and different! The shops are further up the street, and pretty spread out.

Tomorrow we head to New York again, still near Lake Champlain for a night, then on to Lake George for 5 nights.

White Mountains NH

We’ve seen a lot of waterfalls the last 3 days. Paul’s favorite was Diana’s Baths. It had numerous waterfalls with small pools in between. If the weather had been warmer, we could have gone swimming in the pools, which would be a lot of fun. I think my favorite was Arethusa Falls, which happens to be the highest waterfall in New Hampshire. I swear though, the hike to it was 2 miles each way, and it felt like it was uphill both ways(see picture). It was all hill, and rough terrain. The others were fun to get to, but in the autumn there isn’t much water running. It would be more dramatic in the spring. We moved from Gorham to Twin Mountain so that we could more easily access different areas of the mountains. We explored the Crawford Notch area one day, including the Willey House historic site, which I have been to several times. We drove all the way down to North Conway, had ice cream, as usual, and just stopped along the way if something looked interesting. At one point we stopped to take a picture of Mt. Washington, and a fox was meandering around the pull-off, looking for handouts from people. I took a lot of pictures, but it was kind of sad to see. Especially since a little girl did feed him, while her parents watched. Duhhhhhh. The campground we stayed at apparently has a resident bear that hangs around, although we didn’t get to see her, nor did we see a moose while we were here, which was very disappointing. We could have gone on a Moose Tour, but elected not to do it. We did meet Debby and Ken at the campground and immediately hit it off with them- conversation never lagged, that’s for sure. Sometimes we had multiple conversations going as we sat around the campfire trading life stories. They are also full timing and just starting out, although they are headed for FL for the next 6 months, and then they will be on the road- their passion is flyfishing. Yesterday was Franconia Notch exploration day. We did the Gorge tour, which was good, quite a walk, but expensive at $12 per person. We drove down to Clarks Trading Post, but there was no bear show that day. We did see the bears though. In the afternoon we explored the “Lost River”, which is a gorge with caves that you can go in and out of. The main reason we went there is because I remember going there as a kid and I wanted to see if it was how I remembered it. Paul had never been there. It was a fun afternoon. Left NH behind this morning, headed to Lake Champlain, VT. On the way we stopped at Cabot Creamery and took a tour of the facility. It was really interesting. Cabot is a farmers’ cooperative- it has grown from local farmers to hundreds of farmers all over New England. There are signs in several places that make people aware that ALL the profits of everything go back to the farmers. There was an amazing amount of sample cheeses, dips etc set out for people to help themselves. We ate quite a bit, but we also bought some great cheese. I tried something slightly different. It was cinnamon pear jam mixed with cream cheese- VERY good! I bought the jam so I could make it sometime.